In my Veins
by caitewarren
Summary: Emma and Neal journey back from the forest. Set after "The Miller's Daughter"


**Title: **Long Way From Home

**Premise: **Emma and Neal have been "Cora'd" into the middle of the forest and now must find their way home.

To say they were lost would be a bit of an understatement. Lost would have been making a left turn when one was supposed to make a right on a highway, no they were _lost_, involuntarily "poofed" away in an flurry of purplish smoke from the ailing Rumpelstiltskin to somewhere in the middle of a forest somewhere in the Northeastern coast. Cell phone service was nonexistent so silently they began to follow a path out of the woods.

"I hate magic." Neal muttered kicking at a rock on the ground sending it skittering into a tree. His voice is strained, soft and almost childlike. Like his small uttering of _I'm still angry_, back in the shop.

Emma swallowed the lump in her throat, "you as Neal or as Baelfire?"

"Both." He muttered.

Baelfire wasn't in Henry's book. Neither David nor Mary-Margaret knew of Rumpelstiltskin's son, David had even asked if he was glittery and scaly like his father had been in Fairytale land. Baelfire was still much a mystery. There were moments when she'd wake up in the middle of the night from his screaming about deals, his papa and cowards. At the time he'd brushed it off. Tell her to go back to bed that he was 'fine'. He wasn't. Quite usually his skin was a few shades paler, his breathing heavy and labored and his eyes glassy and wide.

"Can you tell me about Baelfire?" she asked as she trotted up towards him matching her pace to his strides and she stuck her hands in her pockets.

"Baelfire is dead."

Emma raised her eyebrow, "that's a lie if I've ever heard one. He was there in that shop holding onto his father's hand. You can deny it all you'd like but pasts aren't something you can escape. They make us who we are."

"Spoken like a true daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming."

Emma snorted. Neal chuckled the same laugh lines appearing on his face as they did eleven years ago. His smile, Henry's smile, they were contagious. The aching sensation in her body was once again there as she took fleeting glances at him. He did the same. The pair never quite making eye contact but there were moments where there was near misses.

"I never got to ask you," Emma said, "why'd you keep the dream catcher?"

Neal paused for a moment. His cheeks for the shortest of seconds blushed faintly as a guilty smile sprawled across his features.

"Oh," Emma said feeling almost pride for getting back at him.

"I can't sleep without it." Neal admitted sheepishly, "you were right it was a flypaper for nightmares…..," after a long silence filled only with the sounds of birds chirping, "I'm sorry for what I did. It was cowardly of me to leave you like I did….," he sniffed quietly tears brimming at the edge of his eyes, "if I'd known that you were pregnant I would have never left."

"Let's just not talk about it ok? I'm over it." Emma's phone at that moment began to buzz violently.

A frantic David was on the other hand speaking rapidly, telling how Cora was dead, Rumple was alive and her mother was cationic.

"David….David…," Emma begged him, "Dad!" she finally yelled in the phone just to get him to stop talking for a moment. He did stop talking for a very long time and all Emma could hear on the other end was long prolonged breathes, "Neal and I are fine. We're trying to figure out how to get out of the woods somewhere. Once we get out we'll get a ride back."

"Emma please be careful."

She almost felt the need to snort. She and Neal had been in much tighter and more perilous situations than walking on a hiking trail in the middle of a northeastern forest. They'd always managed to find their way back to the bug, usually panting and giddy with laughter from their latest heist of action.

"Your dad seems to really care about you." Neal concluded after she closed her phone shut and stuffed it into the depths of her pocket.

"Your dad does too," Emma interjected, "you know during those nights when you'd wake up terrified I was never deaf. I heard you muttering about him back then I bite my tongue about it, but now…I'd love to hear the tale of Baelfire."

"Maybe Baelfire doesn't want to tell it to you," Neal muttered a slight frown appearing on his face.

She'd heard her parents at times discuss themselves in third person, "Mary-Margaret has memories of this…," or "David of Storybrooke knew about this,". It was one of the most annoying things, hearing them speak of themselves in the third person and trying to differ their personalities from the love forsaken Mary-Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan, to Snow White and Prince Charming, and eventually Mom and Dad. Those terms were the hardest to suffice to.

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Refer to yourself in third person."

A jogger who'd been stretching stared at them oddly. In Storybrooke, one could overhear the oddest of conversations, ranging from magic to dwarves, to Evil Queens and everything else. Nobody dared raised an eyebrow, it was just acceptance.

Neal sighed looking away from her, "my Papa and I lived on the outskirts of a kingdom, near the front lines of this ongoing persistent Ogres War that ravaged the land yearly. The Duke of the Front lands would round up every child on their eighteenth birthday, but each year the death toll racked higher and higher and the age got lower and lower, until it got lowered to fourteen."

Her memory of ogres was still freshly engrained into her memory.

"There were Ogres Wars?"

Neal's response was cut off by the sound of two loud honking noises. Mr. Gold's car was parked just at the edge of the trail, Henry was hurriedly climbing out of the passenger's seat. When he caught his first glimpse of them a huge smile appeared on his face as he broke into a dash towards them yelling out "Mom!" and "Dad!". He reached Emma first hitting harshly into her, wrapping his arms around her middle and burying his head in her stomach.

"I'm so sorry….," he mumbled into her jacket.

Emma rubbed circles up and down his back leaning her head in towards him, "it's okay Henry," Tears formed at the edges of her eyes blurring her vision for a moment. She shut her eyes tightly squeezing Henry close to her, trying to forget that her the only man she'd ever loved and his estranged magical Dark One father stood only a mere few feet away from them.

Henry shyly peeked out from Emma's jacket eyeing Neal, "Dad?" he asked hesitantly.

Neal wasn't quite sure he'd ever grow tired of hearing that word. Henry had only muttered it for the first time that morning when they'd gotten off the Jolly Rancher, it left him with such a sense of pride, love and genuine happiness. One he wasn't quite sure how long he'd been deprived off. The embrace at first is awkward but slowly both leaned into each other embrace.

Mr. Gold humbled towards Emma, looking nothing of the sort like the dying man she'd left only a few hours ago. Over his shoulders was the shawl once again.

"How'd you find us so quickly?" Emma asked quickly wiping at the edges of her eyes, hoping to avert whatever subject matter he was about to bring up.

"Magic globe Miss. Swan," he answered earnestly, "and young Henry agreed to accompany me after the deal we made-

"Deal?" Neal demanded rounding upon his father glaring angrily at him.

"That I'd forgive him in exchange for me being able to call him Grandpa," Henry said cheerfully.

"Bae, Emma, Henry are you ready to go home?"

Henry immediately raced towards the passenger seat leaving Emma and Neal to clamber into the backseat as far apart as they could car ride home was filled with Henry's idle chatter as Gold, Emma and Neal exchanged awkward eye contact between themselves, bittersweet Emma couldn't help but to think of that song that was constantly playing on the radio _In Another life_, and cursed herself inside of her for thinking of what could have been in Tallahassee. The mere thought of the city left a numbness lingering in her body.

"What were the two of you chatting about before we came?" Mr. Gold asked his eyes darting towards the mirror starring at the "kids".


End file.
